Pacifica Forum, a discussion group at the University of Oregon that has hosted a parade of Holocaust deniers and other far-right extremists, was recently named a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. And the forum is not happy about it. So unhappy, in fact, that it devoted two recent sessions to complaining about the SPLC.

But the sessions, titled “POVERTY PALACE: Deconstructing the Southern Poverty Law Center,” seemed more than anything else to affirm the SPLC’s designation. At the first session, for instance, Pacifica Forum presenter Dawn Coslow suggested that the Jews (who else?) might have given money to the SPLC to influence which organizations it lists as hate groups, according to two students who attended.

The second session began with Coslow asking Michael Williams of the Anti-Hate Task Force, who’s helped monitor the forum, if the SPLC had sent him there six years ago “to get” Pacifica Forum. “Well, that’s a real bullshit question, isn’t it?” Williams replied. (For the record, the SPLC has never enlisted Williams or anyone else to spy on Pacifica Forum.)

The meeting went downhill from there. In a column for the University of Oregon student newspaper, the Daily Emerald, Truman Capps described the session this way: “What began as a discussion devolved by the end of the meeting into members of the Pacifica Forum and its detractors exercising their right to free speech very loudly at one another. Notable highlights from the proceedings include a comparison of the Southern Poverty Law Center to the KGB and the declaration from those involved with the Forum that hate doesn’t incite violence, which the Forum’s opponents countered by declaring the Forum a ‘freak show’ and defined anti-Semitism as reading Holocaust denier literature ‘without puking.’ The dispute ended when [93-year-old forum founder Orval] Etter rose from his wheelchair, Dr. Strangelove style, and adjourned the meeting.”

Both sessions took place at the student union, where Pacifica Forum has been meeting thanks to a policy that allows retired professors such as Etter to reserve free space on campus for organizations they sponsor. Pacifica Forum had previously been forced to find new meeting places after former sponsors raised concerns about the group’s anti-Semitism.

Now, it looks like Pacifica Forum will once again be moving to a new home — this time, in a building on the outskirts of campus. Sam Dotters-Katz, student body president, said he persuaded Etter and Coslow to leave the student union after meeting with them last month at Etter’s retirement home in Eugene. “It [the student union] houses our institutions of tolerance, and it’s inappropriate to have this hate group meet there,” Dotters-Katz told Hatewatch. “We’re definitely pleased that they’re voluntarily leaving because that’s really the only way we could get them out.”

Meanwhile, as Pacifica Forum griped about being listed as a hate group, a former participant had his vanity license plate rescinded by the state of Oregon after residents pointed out its anti-Jewish message. The Mail Tribunereported that the license plate on James Marr’s pickup read “NO ZOG,” the second word of which stands for “Zionist Occupied Government” and is commonly used by neo-Nazi groups who assert that Jews control the government. Counter-protesters spotted the plate at an April 26 rally of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement in Phoenix, Ore., and complained to Oregon’s Driver and Motor Vehicle Services Division. The division, which hadn’t been aware of ZOG’s meaning when it issued the license plate last September, last week sent a letter to Marr revoking the plate.

The Mail Tribune did not link Marr to Pacifica Forum, but a woman who answered the phone yesterday at Marr’s home in Springfield, Ore., confirmed that he was involved with the group. Although Marr hasn’t attended Pacifica Forum since around August of last year, as a participant he distinguished himself by bringing a desecrated menorah to a session and delivering a speech, compiled by another Pacifica Forum attendee, which vilified Martin Luther King Jr.

6. In a post at https://pacificaforum.org/posts/23 the pacifica writer writes: “I remember the folk singer Leon Rosselson once making a comment at one of his gigs along the lines of

“if you’re of Jewish origin but you’re not religious and you’re not a Zionist there’s not really much point in calling yourself a Jew”.

Unfortunately, he then fudged the issue by claiming to believe in some kind of ‘Jewish spirit’ and then sang a song about it.”

In general the post seems aimed at a method of genocide similar to what happened with American Indians and boarding schools, turning Indians into white people. And it’s stupid. As far as I can tell, (I got this largely from a Jewish-American who was a fellow Ethnic Studies major) being Jewish is also an ethnic/cultural identity, at least for some majority- some are atheists and identify that way solely. There are some others I’m iffy on, but I know of one Jewish person who is an atheist, identifies as Jewish, and supports the Palestinians. Of course she had to throw a wrench into this by telling me she identifies as a religious Jew, but that’s stupid and the facts are the facts: A) she doesn’t believe in God (this is all based on when we were friends about 7 years ago) B) she changed her first name to a traditional Jewish one, C) she talks about Israel by using the word Apartheid. So as far as I can tell, you can be a secular Jew who supports the Palestinians (I suppose to some tiny degree she might call herself a Zionist, but probably not and she does talk about Israeli Apartheid).

7. In that piece on anti-fascism, he makes all sorts of excuses for the killing of Seraw, the Ethiopian killed in Portland OR by boneheads in the late 1980s. More generally he suggests that hate crimes are often something other than hate crimes.

5. I don’t feel like throwing myself into this, but will make a few comments on the page https://pacificaforum.org/posts/10
A: “Real fascists are against Zionism. Their genuine opposition to Jewish supremacy should be openly discussed, not slandered and suppressed.” Sounds like they’re friendly to fascists to me, although elsewhere the author claims to be against fascism, while at the same time making a major attack on anti-fascism (https://pacificaforum.org/mass).
B: “Britain’s main extreme right-wing party, the BNP, embraced Zionism at the same time it abandoned the last trace of anti-semitism – yet the left still calls it ‘Nazi’” This contradicts his claim that anti-fascism is pro-Jewish. I’m not sure how far the BNP has moved on anti-semitism and Israel, I mean, American Renaisance conferences had Jewish speakers as racist allies and anti-semitic speakers at the same time, but events have shown that they liked the anti-semites more than the racist jews, so they were basically anti-semites while providing kosher meals for their racist Jewish friends. Anyway, it does contradict the idea, ridiculous to begin with, that anti-fascism is pro-Jewish- it’s anti-hate, it’s pro-democracy, it’s pro-diversity etc. Also, his statement sounds like he’s complaining about people criticizing the BNP, like he’s still sort of fond of them even after they (to one degree or another) stopped being anti-semitic. It’s possible that without the anti-semitism, fascist is a more appropriate term for the BNP than Nazi, but who cares? The difference is so small that I’m not going to care when someone on the far-right uses that to criticise anti-fascists.

http://devlin-mcaliskey.blogspot.com/ Tom Shelley

(apparently the comment I’ve been trying to post is too long. It’s been suggested that I edit it down, but I don’t know what the limit is, and I kind of hate doing that anyway, so I’m doing it in two parts, hope that’s okay)

I actually found the Pacifica Forum web-site, and found some things that contradict what I thought and some things that support what I thought, so I’m basically where I was earlier. Some things that contradict what I thought (or with the last one, makes them look okay, I mean, how many groups do that?):

1) Several links to progressive sources.
2) A link to jewishvoiceforpeace.org (of course for all I know they ARE self-hating, but I doubt it)
3) Fondness for United for Peace and Justice (if they’ve gone bad I probably would have heard about it unless it was the last 6 months)
4) probably 2-3 other minor things.
5) A willingness to feature links to articles critical of them and statements by former members who are critics.

stuff that supports the charges:

2) They had a speaker talk about his passion for the swastika. As far as I can tell it was the traditional swastika, but you do things like have David Irving speak and then have a pro-swastika event, you can’t complain if people connect the dots.

3) Attacks on Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky, and Amy Goodman. Must be a coincidence that they’re all Jews. They support the Palestinians, but they’re attacked anyway. With Chomsky it’s specifically because he believes it’s possible that Israel can be preassured to change, but he doesn’t get it that Zionist hate is in the genes (or the talmud, or whatever these sick people at Pacifica think) (as I’m sure those three would agree, the point is that it’s possible to convince Jewish Israelis and their Jewish supporters elsewhere that Israel must dramatically transform how it relates to the Palestinians, and that is very possible- sort of likely, and will be more likely when those supporting the Palestinians make it more clear that anti-semitism is not tolaterated in their ranks). (I’m actually not a big Chomsky fan, Klein seriously annoys me, but I used to love Democracy Now, my not listening recently isn’t a protest).

4. The following is from a page on their site: “‘It is an inconvenient truth that for a section of the Western public, an increase in anti-semitism would lead to a decrease in support for Israel, so Zionism and anti-semitism are sometimes on opposite sides of the fence, rather than two sides of the same coin. It follows that it is impossible to be equally opposed to Zionism and to anti-semitism.’” This is clearly aimed at getting supporters of the Palestinians to be anti-semitic, and could easily be interpreted as hoping for an upsurge in incidents.
to be continued

Jonathan Marks

Having attended the U of O and being an alumnus (’05), I find it disgusting and hateful that my University is allowing this type of hate on campus.

I was part of the active Jewish life on campus for students, part of the Jewish fraternity, and involved in campus politics. Most of the students did not even know the Pacifica Forum was meeting at the EMU (Erb Memorial Union) or even what it was. The article is right by mentioning the fact that “It [the student union] houses our institutions of tolerance, and it’s inappropriate to have this hate group meet there”.

The EMU houses Black Student Union, Jewish Student Union any many other ethnic union groups, including Latino, Asian, Pacific-Islander, etc. We generally have had pretty good relation on campus with all of them.

The only time we had blows on campus is during the start of the Second Intifada, when an Islamic group deliberately reserved the space in the amphitheater in front of the EMU to protest the occupation/zionism/jews in general with coffins and such, right before the Holocaust Memorial Day where we read all the names of people who had died. Every year, the JSU (Jewish Student Union) and other Jewish groups read for 24 hours, rain or shine in front of the EMU. Needless to say, that year was not the best year at the U of O.

Regardless, the Pacifica Forum is a blight on the University and am pleased that they are moving off campus. However, coverage of this event should continue. Eugene is a place known for leftist/progressive movements. I went there partly because of that. We even have a statue of Ken Kesey siting and reading to children in downtown Eugene. The U of O has always been a place where people can express their views in a non-violent manner. Let’s continue that by moving this group off of campus.

Carter

Mr Felch
I really don’t care whether anything sounds bigoted to you. I voice my opinion & appreciate others to do the same; you included.
Yes, I have known a prostitute. More than one, frankly.
A person who sells themselves is deeply troubled and often very corrupted in a manner than is difficult to fathom. A prostitute is NOT some “discriminated group” but a human being who sells themselves for money. The very depth of selling oneself is a low-functioning, vile thing to do. I will NOT excuse the depiction of that which in all manner of people have looked upon as grotesque & excuse that behavior because I believe it to be destructive in the extreme.

If you want to make prostitutes into a “discriminated class”; be my guest. Just let me know who the HELL oppresses a prostitute? The very basis for selling oneself comes from acquiescence to a set of moral under-pinnings & circumstances and CHOOSING to sell oneself. NO ONE is demanding a person continue to sell themselves; they make that choice.
To be FORCED into a venue that demands anyone to participate in money for sex is NOT prostitution: it is victimization. There is a DAMN BIG difference.
Let me make that clearer to you: “a gun to your head or a choice” -that’s what we are dealing with. I trust you can understand that.

I have lived & worked in Mexico for quite some years. The level of corruption is so endemic that for many people who have never “seen it in action”, describing it doesn’t do it justice. I have seen tourists taken to the penitentiary (not just jail) for not being able to pay off an official more times than I like to think about. I have seen the wealthy going to the Ministry of the Interior & “paying their taxes”. I have seen what happens to the poor in Mexico….Have you? And before you throw around scoldings to people you don’t know, imagine for one minute that you DON’T have a lock on any answers; you simply have an opionin. I have prefaced my remarks with same: if you don’t agree, you’ve said so – if you do, that’s great.
.Are you one of the people who call Mexicans, “SPANISH”? As if the word Mexican is somehow a “put down”? I’ll bet that touches a nerve….
THAT, Mr. Felch is a discriminatory attitude.

Howie Felch

@carter,
I don’t know what you are trying to say here:
“The government infrastructure of Mexico is often as corrupt as a prostitute”

This may be a figure of speech thing, but is sounds as bigoted as hell to me. Have you ever known a “prostitute” personally? Do you really think they are as corrupt as “the government infrastructure of Mexico”? I assure you, : “prostitutes” are real people with feelings and lives and children and bills to pay, and they do not appreciate being reduced to a punch line by the likes of you, as if they were somehow sub-human. They are some of the most discriminated against and oppressed people in our society, have all varieties of moral character of persons in their ranks and deserve far better treatment than pseudo intellectual blowhards like you seem to want to dish out to them.
You should be ashamed of your stereotypic and discriminatory attitude towards them.

opit

Religious headbanging is part of my discomfort. I read that ideologues taught at U.S. Air Force academies to raise up distrust of Islam and officers both. That was Israeli sourced : but was preceded by complaints dating back years that the armed services rules against prosletization were not being followed.
Here’s a recent findhttp://theygaveusarepublic.com.....ecrusaders
And so it goes. Radio talk show hosts and television presenters are incendiary : Fox revolting and ridiculous both.
Even the phrase ‘conspiracy theorist’ seems loaded. Anyone with a scientific appreciation thinks in terms of proving one’s points in orderly fashion. The Ignoratti as one who sees ghosts and can’t think straight.
‘Intelligent Design’ seems dedicated to the proposition that spin is more important than truth : a chameleon based on the same premises that underpin religion – not science. Reproductive legislation – marriage, abortion, sexual orientation – is often a straight power grab on grounds rooted firmly in hate.It’s interesting that so much of the time unformed unborn potential humanity is valued much more than those who have arrived – and called ‘Pro Life’ as if that were not a badge of shame. Can you imagine if all the energy devoted to ending killing included real people ?

daemonesslisa

There really are people that are more deserving for college. And I think that it should anger people a lot more to know that this is what some of their tax money goes to; a bunch of neo-nazis flipping the bird to their “liberal/jewish” professors and skipping class.

A lot of really terrible people get to pass through the university system in america; look at what a Yale legacy admission got us for the past 8 years!

Michael Williams

AP–
This is not a student organization. There are no University of Oregon students involved. Students attend only to object, or (as one of them said) “visit the zoo.” They have much better things to do with their time on a late Friday afternoon.

The average age of the regular attenders has to be over 60. The only UO person involved is Etter, 94 year old retired emeritus associate professor. On that basis, the University provides free room and facilities.

AP

I don’t agree with a State University housing such activities, and under the guise of free speech.

Would they allow a student Klan to congregate? How about a an organization of men that says women are not really intelligent enough to attend colleges? Do you draw the line anywhere?

This is offensive to anything decent or intellectually valid.

How did these students even get admitted?

What public high school teachers recommended them? What admissions officers reviewed their records?

They should attend a private college, like Liberty for the folks who believe the earth is 6,000 years old. I’m sure there are much more able, deserving students who need those seats. Along with whatever public monies fund their education.

I am a taxpayer and I object.

Michael Williams

Tom has the make-up of Pacifica Forum about right. Orval Etter, the founder, is the only member left after he began his “Zionism and its Links” series in 2003-2004. This series dealt primarily with Jewish individuals and organizations (always negative), rarely with Israel or Palestine. (Etter defines Zionism as “Any topic that had some logical connection to Israel, Jewish interests, a topic that could be shown to have some relationship would be in the orbit.”) That pattern continues. Membership declines every time there is a cycle of criticism and community disgust toward the programming.

Etter’s use of anti-Jewish ultra-rightwing sources has driven many people away, but in 2006 it (inevitably) attracted some white nationalists, separatists and neo-Nazi sympathizers who expanded the Forum’s repertoire to include racism against African-Americans and Arabs. That drove away even more people, sometimes criticizing Pacifica Forum on the way out. Progressive folks have been filtered out by now, attending only as opposition.

Current attendance is down to Etter plus half a dozen core attendees committed to the programming, sometimes a few visitors, most of whom never come back. There are usually 2 or 3 who attend as witnesses. Some sessions are relatively benign, some virulently hateful. At all times there is an apparent willingness among the core regulars to allow anti-Jewish, anti-Black, anti-Muslim statements by speakers (and among themselves) to pass unchallenged, while being very reactive to criticism of Pacifica Forum itself.

The danger of small-time operations like Pacifica Forum is not that the members are going to go out and firebomb churches or beat up presumed immigrants, but that they provide an environment where expressions of bigotry and prejudice are acceptable (and even applauded), encouraging and empowering people who hold those views. Sometimes it seems to me it has almost become a support group for the culturally challenged. They also provide a platform for the unchallenged propagation of racist ideologies that provide the “intellectual” foundation for those who do take violent action in defense of their “race.”

Pacifica Forum’s featured speaker / speech writer over the past 3 years has been Valdas Anelauskas, responsible for at least 13 lectures beginning with the 2006 series on Jews in Russia. Three weeks ago Anelauskas declared his war on the opposition at a Forum session on the SPLC. (The emphasis is his): “There is a WAR going on. There is a WAR going on…. In a WAR you have ENEMIES. It means you HATE your enemies.” It is a “WAR for freedom, freedom of speech, intellectual freedom” and against those who would take it away, SPLC and Jews. Then is the comparison of SPLC to the KGB. “Those are our enemies.”

No Forum regular took exception, not even the pacifist Etter. A “hate group”? Officially certified, and seemingly determined to prove their qualifications.

http://devlin-mcaliskey.blogspot.com/ Tom Shelley

Apparently Joe didn’t read the article that the post links to, the red-colored text at the beginning of the post. The PF started as a progressive-left group and has since become right-wing.

As far as labels, I’m not saying they always work, and within reason, the more terms you use or the more specific the term, the more accurate they become, but there’s nothing wrong with describing a group’s politics in a way that stops short of writing an essay.

The PF are anti-semitic, racist, at least one prominent member is friendly to the NSM, they have had speakers attack Dr. King as a communist, one of their speakers compared the SPLC to the KGB (I’m not saying you have to be a right-winger to dis-like the KGB, but making that comparison makes me more comfortable with labeling them right-wing). I wouldn’t be surprised if some of their members are good on labor, globalization, the environment, and the original members who are still involved probably still believe in peace, but if you look at the right-wing stuff I’ve mentioned, you look at who their allies are (very few people who can easily be called leftists will touch them, but they seem popular with people who can easily be called right), and calling them right-wing seems accurate enough to me.

Tom

http://my.opera.com/oldephartte/blog/ opit

‘Labeled’. Aye, there’s the rub. I don’t care who does it…and repetition makes it no more respectable.http://www.logicalfallacies.info/
When one lives in a world of programmed bullshit : the boundaries tend to be vague.

Joe

You guys did read the beginning of the article where it labeled these guys at a far-right group, right?

http://devlin-mcaliskey.blogspot.com/ Tom Shelley

I am sort of reluctant to tell people this, although I probably should when this comes up, and I have now told three people before this.

In my sophmore year of college, I was mildly anti-semitic. First, it was mild, I never used the K-word, I never thought “those f—ing jews,” I certainly as f— never bought in to Holocaust Denial, but I had some kind of negative attitude towards Jews.

It was largely about Israel. Although it wouldn’t matter if my estimate was right, I had an exaggerated sense of how uncritical J-As are. Same thing with how upper-middle-class they are. I also had two room-mates, one that year and one the year before, I didn’t get along with, one I even got in a fight with. And to a large degree I didn’t know many Jews till my freshman year of college (although my Mom’s best friend was Jewish).

I did basically nothing about it, I don’t know if it was connected to me organizing an event in support of the Palestinians (no one showed, there was another event on that issue, the same night). I’ve continued supporting the Palestinians, and the speaker I got, I have since learned is very much against anti-semitism, although possibly a little soft on Hamas, and I don’t think I was thinking at the time that he was anti-semitic.

About 3 years later I was organizing Students for Justice in N. Ireland at CU-Boulder with a Jewish woman as a fellow co-chair. Obviously it was not a great leap for me, my problem was pretty mild. I think what did it was that when I spent some time doing an AFL-CIO internship called Union Summer, the assistant site coordinator was Jewish (later on we were kind of friends at college) and there was an Irish-Catholic guy and they did this Catholic/Jewish rivalry thing for laughs, I’m not sure how to describe it, but about 5 years ago on Comedy Central Jon Stewart and Colin Quinn did it.

Not exactly the Angela King story, but I thought I’d mention it.

tom

Carter

The Palestinian people are developing their own “Right of Return” & this may balance the contextual Zionist elements in the region. Given enough time it may lead to an appreciation of each people’s needs & not simple co-existence.
The thing that I found impressive is that there are Israeli citizens that are also sick of the violence & often voice their feelings in protests, etc.
It’s an interesting country with extremely diverse political elements.

Speaking only for myself I see no problem with speaking out against a State policy or action.
The government infrastructure of Mexico is often as corrupt as a prostitute but yet the majority of Servicemen (of any nationality) in the USA who won medals of valor were of Mexican decent.
{Statistic gathered from the US Dept. of Defense ’06}

Often, European peoples have very negative feelings toward Americans until they really get to know them. I’ve often thought that State politics reflect the individual as much as “clothes make the man”.
The superficialities of both State politics & clothing when stripped away, leaves the same tears & blood as from the rich or poor.

daemonesslisa

The thing about Israel is that many liberals–like myself–are just sick of the violence and want it to end, even if it means saying no to the Israeli state. This is where it gets gray; it’s hard to be ‘against’ Israel without being accused of anti-semitism, mainly because the majority of people against Israel are indeed anti-semites. Those of us who simply want peace are left without a voice.

Carter

When I was quite a young man I went to a school for gifted students. I had a teacher for humanities that was (for lack of a better word) extremely Leftist (she described herself as a Socialist). She was a great teacher. But one day she launched into a diatribe about Israel. I listened t her very carefully. The first portion of her lecture was a criticism which was an attack against Zionism as being exclusionary & the country being thus exclusionary toward the Arab population & were getting a raw deal.
This struck a cord in me, naturally. Then subtlety the verbiage began to change and the term Israel began to be mentioned less and the word “Jew” began to be substituted. Until the thrust of her lecture was that “the Jews” were practicing Apartheid.
Over and over I heard: “the Jews” this & that……I really enjoyed that teacher but that lecture left me with a feeling that she had a very serious agenda with “the Jews” not the State politics of Israel. Even at 15 or 16 yrs old I knew that was unhealthy & I was deeply disappointed.
We were to write a paper & I pointed out that what I heard was that “the Jews” were practicing Apartheid. She told he privately that was not what she meant at all.. She assured me that she had many Jewish friends.
She said the standard line; “I’m not a bigot, some of my best friends are (fill in the person)”. I remember smiling & saying “yes Ma’am” & not being able to look her in the eyes because I knew that line from years of hearing it & knowing what it meant.
I didn’t know many Jewish or Arabic people; but then I don’t know too many Kurds or Persians. But I damn well know what intellectualism through familiarity means in a social context..

http://devlin-mcaliskey.blogspot.com/ Tom Shelley

This is something that I have talked about a bit on my blog in two posts (I’ve done three other posts on anti-semitism and mentioned it briefly here and there). The way that some people on the left are seduced by the far-right via anti-semitism over Israel (possibly some other stuff as well, but I think it’s overwhelmingly Israel). I’m not sure how often it happens, but I’m sure it does (that is, people being seduced by the far-right; there’s plenty of left-wing anti-semites who other-wise remain left-wing).

Anyway, the first post, which links, where I discuss Israel, to the second post, is at http://devlin-mcaliskey.blogsp.....iscoe.html (the most consistent theme on my blog is N. Ireland, but almost all of my blog is also either about or connected to rolling back hatred in America)

Tom

Ruslan Amirkhanov

Many people on the left, due to a lack of true left socialist foundation in America, have lost hope and reason after years of failure. As a result, they get more and more radical, not in a constructive way, but an idiotic way. Constant distrust breeds paranoid conspiracy theories.

daemonesslisa

You know who the real liberals are; they’re the ones that don’t run away from non-white minorities. It’s a shame that there are so many of them that do run away. We still have quite a long way to go.

Carter

The SPLC (& Sonia Scherr) are to be commended for pointing out with equal prominence the anti-Semitism that originates in certain sectors of the far left.
{See link to Pacifica Forum in it’s entirety}
I am sorry to say that I have seen some Limousine-Liberals who have moved rather than live next to a family of color. It is not only some Republicans who protect their Country Clubs from the “Dark Hoards”.
This garbage should be dealt with in any forum that allows the stupidity of such bigotry to malign the thrust of the original issues.
Thus we see the UN’s racism’s agenda misdirected in this news from the BBC:
“Boycott blow for UN racism forum”http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8006852.stm
The UN’s forum was boycotted by several EU nations, the USA, as well as non-aligned countries from around the world – that could have been a great boon to the fight against hate.

However, in this instance, bigotry at the university was allowed to proceed under our Bill of Rights (& perhaps that’s all to the best). But enough people thought enough of the foolish idea of any broad brush attack against a select group that freedom of speech was balanced with freedom of thought & logic.

Islamic peoples are not women-hating mad bombers & Jewish people are not involved in some subversive secret plot.
Thank God (or what is one’s Greater Good) that enough people know in their heart that people are only that…..They come in varied hues of temperament, insight, & decency. There are no heroes or villains attached to political affiliation that cannot be balanced with those that oppose them.